The Adoption of ERP Applications in China

The adoption of enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications started in the early 1990s in the US and Europe. Although many researchers have studied the critical success factors (CSFs) or developed implementation framework to guide the deployment of the complex IT projects, there have been many failed implementations. The implementation of ERP systems in China began in the late 1990s but has resulted in a disappointing success rate of about 10 percent. This paper will investigate which issues facilitate or hinder the adoption of ERP applications in China in the light of previous research reported on Western firms. The research methodology is secondary data collection and case narratives. Twenty small case studies about the implementation of ERP systems in Chinese organisations will be discussed. Since the data has been collected and presented by other practitioners for certain purposes, the limitations of this research are also considered.